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We've been sold fat loss as a 21 day challenge, a 90 day cut, a six week fat loss phase, a 75 hard, a before and after with a specific end date. And there's real value in these cut phases. I like, and I say this in the suffering way, a good mini cut challenge. But real reconp, and I'll be honest, this is probably the last thing you want to hear, is the result of everything you actually do around those times. Through the busy season, the stressful months, the times where going all in and doing something that intensive actually isn't realistic and we often fall off. But what you do in those times, whether you maintain, take an intentional break, or you shift your focus entirely, is often what decides whether your results last or whether you're starting over every January or every Monday or after every vacation.
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And for those of you like me who pride yourselves on being more disciplined, the last thing we do often want to hear is that slowing down could be the most productive thing we do for our reconp, but recomp has phases and owning that is super key. And knowing which one you're in right now is what separates the people who see lasting changes and results from those who keep starting over. So go for a walk, listen as you meal prep or get comfy on the couch because by the end of this, you'll know exactly which phase you're in and what to do about it. And I'm going to ask you to do some hard reflection and even potentially take some notes for yourself and ask yourself some tough questions, which part of this reflection is stuff I'm doing myself right now because I'm going in the holiday season, which is the season for me that was always the toughest.
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During January, I can go into that all in phase during the summer I manage to maintain, but for some reason the holidays always sabotage me. And I see the same pattern repeating for clients where they feel like they're starting over in January. But honestly, all of this reflection and owning the season you're in can apply to any busy time of year, any time where you've pushed really hard and you even feel the self-sabotage creeping in the, "Oh, don't I deserve this? Shouldn't I be able to relax?" You've even accomplished your goal and you're sort of like, "Now what?" Or you feel yourself even burning out. So this really applies to all that. And building a lifestyle isn't doing one thing. And I think we get very caught up in that like, "Oh, well I'm tracking. I have to track macros." Okay, well maybe you do have to track macros forever, but it doesn't mean it happens in one form.
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And I would also argue we don't have to do anything forever. There are going to be things we should do at different times and how we implement those things is going to evolve, but that's not our attitude. For a lot of us, it is push harder. And so in really thinking about that push harder mindset, even personally knowing it doesn't serve me, it's why I've fallen off every holiday season. I'm trying to force the same habits I forced in January and they don't fit because I do have more parties I want to go to. There are more events that I want to celebrate. I have food that is tied to certain emotions and celebrations and I want to have those opportunities, which is very different from my schedule in January and what I'm sort of willing to do and feel motivated to do. But instead of owning that, I would try and white knuckle my way through.
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And I recognize that relying on this push harder, do more attitude was what was causing me to ultimately always feel like I'm starting over instead of shifting gears. But in knowing all this, it still wasn't easy to get myself to do it. So I started really looking into why this happened, what was the behavioral reason for this, the mindset reason for this? And there were two things that popped up for me that I think are worth really sharing and also might help you sort of understand your own push this direction despite knowing that it probably isn't serving you and why it's so easy to default back into this familiar pattern. And one was the present bias. So we want results right now. It's why we eat out of emotional eating despite knowing we shouldn't eat or that it won't really satisfy us or that it won't really fix the problem.
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We do it because it solves an immediate problem. So when you throw more willpower at the problem, when you try and dial in your workouts the same way during the holidays, even though you technically really can only sustainably do three days a week and that would make you feel successful, you still try and force six is because if you can force it for a little bit, you do see the scale drop, you do see changes continue to happen. So out of wanting results right now, you push harder, not really owning what the long-term effect of that is going to be. And a lot of times what it is, is that we start the holidays doing that and then all of a sudden we completely fall off and go so far the other direction because craving hit even harder. We feel like we deserve it. We feel like, well, now I'm just eating because I have to get everything in before I have to start over in January.
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So the present bias often sabotages us long term and it even creates mindsets we don't recognize that really backfire. I would argue it's why a lot of people are so resistant to tracking, so resistant to certain habits is because they've built up an animosity towards them because of trying to willpower their way through because of that present bias and wanting results so right now that they didn't think about the long-term effect of, okay, what am I actually creating in terms of my mental attitude towards this? Am I so building up this feeling that I can't ever just live life, that I always have to be this person on a diet that it's going to sabotage me when I can actually be motivated and dial things in and then make me continue to repeat this pattern instead? So I think there's the present bias that we have to recognize.
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Are we so desperate for results now that we're setting ourselves up for failure long term? Not easy to break that down, but sometimes saying, "Hey, if I actually embrace slower results, would that ultimately over the course of a year, which is not sexy to look at the course of a year, we want week to week, but if we can look at the course of the year, would this be better for me?" So present bias keeps us a little stuck in that push harder mindset, especially during those stressful times. And that leads to us ultimately falling off and we just can't keep willpowering our way through because willpower is not infinite. And the more discipline we are, probably the more we're using willpower in other areas of our life to succeed. And so the less then we sometimes use for ourselves in areas we think we can get away with it or that we're going to fall back into the familiar old patterns.
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The second was the cognitive dissonance. And I though this was an interesting, I guess I'll say phenomenon or it was an interesting behavioral thing that goes on with humans. And I think it's important to highlight because, and that's my very scientific term, behavioral thing. I think it's really important to highlight because it goes back to why we keep ourselves stuck so much with different changes and why we resist certain habits. But with creating our habits, with creating our lifestyle, with creating even the labels we use on ourself, like I am so disciplined, we create this identity. And so for a lot of us, it's always work to do more. I can think about a ton of times where it's like, okay, slash my calories lower. Okay, even go higher in protein, do more of a mini cut macro ratio and out exercise my diet and do more training and all these intensive things.
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I'm actually going to work more hours. All these different things are the discipline that I prided myself on. And I recognize I got so tied up in this that it was hard to step back and take a day off. It was hard to not reply to things right away. It was actually hard to take more time for me and slow down because my identity was so tied up in some of these habits because of the label it reinforced. Instead of saying, well, being a disciplined person is actually about knowing what it takes to get results, which means slowing down. But I want us to recognize when that push harder is part of the identity we've defined ourselves as or created for ourselves and the habits that reinforce that are hard to let go of because of this. That's why it's hard to say maintaining is actually the goal.
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Seeing what I can get away with in terms of what I can even work into my macros in terms of holiday cookies or summer barbecues or whatever time of year it is for you, that's a good thing. But we don't see that as discipline instead saying, Hey, this is actually being disciplined because I'm giving myself these new goals that I can actually work towards and I'm owning the season to know what discipline really should look like for this phase. But there's this cognitive dissonance that trying to slow down creates often and we don't recognize it because we've gotten so good at and so familiar with the weight loss process that we don't recognize that that is different than maintaining, than building, than any of the other goals we want to work towards if we want to see lasting reconp, but we tie up our identity in those habits that lead to fat loss only.
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And so it's hard to shift gears. So I think recognizing that can help us embrace the changes or even see where we see that mental resistance sort of increase against some of the habits we might need to do or some of the reflection that will sort of poke holes in what we're doing right now. But we see why we default back into the same pattern, same cycle over and over again because of present bias and cognitive dissonance. So it's why even the cut phases get so much credit, we'll say, because we do see progress with them. We are actually really good often at losing weight, losing fat, we're just not good at maintaining it. And that's what leads to lasting reconp, that's what leads to us looking more muscular, looking more defined truly is that we're able to sustain it longer than that time. When people ask how long between these photos, even if that was six weeks, over the six week periods when I've shown some before and afters, they've gotten better and better even if I was leaner to start because it's an accumulation of all the time prior.
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We don't recognize that. So I really want to talk about owning the phase we're in. And this is a little different than the fat loss phases where I talk about mini cut and lifestyle build and diet break. This is more about an assessment of lifestyle because if we don't own the season we're in, if we don't own then in January, we might be more motivated, we might not have as much travel, work might be a little bit quieter after a busy season versus in the holiday season we have more travel. We're potentially even really busy at work trying to keep up with everything or get everything done so we have more time off. There's different lifestyle balances that need to be assessed, but there's also different goals. And I bring this up because what you do even in one holiday season, one summer might be different than what you do in a different summer because of the goals you're driving towards.
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If right now you are in an intensive weight loss phase and you really know that you need to see momentum and you're actually motivated to do that because of the progress you've seen and the changes you want to make, because sometimes we have to push in the hard of saying, no, I don't actually need this. It's just what I've always done, you might be in a push phase. It might be like, no, I'm keeping some of these habits and routines because I know they're good for me. It's what I really want and I'm owning the heart of this. I'm making a choice to push into the hard. And so yes, there will be more willpower, more discipline that you're throwing at it, but you're also owning that. And it's not necessarily a pattern you repeat, and this is what I want you to highlight is like, is that your default?
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Well, yeah, I want to push. I want results right now. Again, present bias. Is that what you've told yourself every other holiday season and ultimately that's what made you fall off? So recognize that if you are going to choose the push, it is your choice and it is done strategically and you can make a different choice at a different holiday season or whatever busy season. But that is a choice, right? Focus on that cut, focus on that build even, right? Push could be towards building, but it's focused on that thing and you are not sacrificing anything else for those or you're sacrificing anything you need for those things. The next one would be maintain. And I don't think that maintenance is looked at as much as progress as it really is, but maintaining is not one thing. I'll be like, well, I get to maintaining, what do I do?
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Well, you don't do one thing, you still cycle. We don't do very well without direction. If you do not have direction in what you want to work towards, you're probably going to end up falling off some of the habits, getting a little lazier. And honestly, I would say sometimes during maintenance, the goal should be to even say, how much can I get away with? So it's not necessarily a goal towards building or cutting still or getting leaner. It doesn't have to be a recomp goal, but in maintaining it you still have to have a focus and maybe it's performance or whatnot. But maintaining is progress in and of itself because in maintaining your results, things are going to get easier. You can help improve your metabolic health, you can help lift more. All these things are going to ultimately pay off. But sometimes just getting through the holiday season with the weight loss we've already accomplished sets us up for great success in the new year because so often we gain 10 pounds versus losing it or maintaining the 10 pound weight loss we already have.
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So if you can set yourself up to go into a more motivated phase, that's going to be great. Not to mention, sometimes in maintaining and backing off, we find we're more motivated. We feel successful in that. We feel like we have a balance. We don't feel like we're having to willpower our way through and all of a sudden you're like, I'm craving doing more. It's like the same thing as if you can't have something, all of a sudden you want it, but if you can't have it, all of a sudden you're sometimes like, I don't really care about having it. Eh, that's fine, whatever. So maintaining can be a phase and it can be a phase that ultimately launches us forward faster afterwards. And I use maintaining differently than what I'll call as sort of the third phase, which is an intentional break. And the reason I separate these things out is because an intentional break might actually be trying to see if you can get away with things.
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And it might be embracing that you actually are going to even gain a few pounds if fat loss has been your focus or you're going to let your performance slide a little bit to take that deload, but it's recognized even that you don't have the mental bandwidth or the physical bandwidth to do certain things. And so it's allowing yourself that little bit of deviation to know that it'll help you come back stronger. So it's sort of owning that yes, you want the holiday season, you want to have those celebrations, you're going to go on more trips and you want to enjoy them in a specific way. It's owning this, right? Because maintenance, you might set some buffers. Okay, I'm going to allow this trip, but I'm not going to have the day after Thanksgiving leftovers. So that might be a little bit more balance right there.
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But then the intentional break, you might just say, I'm going to enjoy this holiday season, but in that I'm setting enough minimums that instead of gaining the five pounds, I'm only going to gain two, which feels very weird to say, I'm going to actually allow myself to slide from my goals. But in saying I'm giving myself this 1% deviation, it doesn't become 1% on top of 1% on top of 1% on top of 1%. So sometimes we have to own that we have to allow ourselves that little wiggle room in order to move forward. Maybe it's the summer and you have a ton of travel coming up. And so you do have that push beforehand, but during that travel, you're just like, you know what? I'm owning that on these vacations. I don't take them very often the rest of the year. I want a certain thing to happen.
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I'm not going to feel like I'm starting over. There's no guilt. So the intentional break separates out the guilt, which ultimately over the course of the year creates better balance. It allows us to go more all in when we need to. But sometimes you need that intentional break where you're going to say, I am willing to let these things slide X amount. And that's your then boundary and buffer. The last phase is what I'll call sort of the flex phase. And this is where you find a balance of actually pushing, but those intentional breaks or the maintaining and you're owning that in a season, you're breaking it down into potentially mini phases. So around the holidays, I'll use as an example, knowing that coming into Thanksgiving, you want to enjoy Thanksgiving as a certain season or a certain way, you want to enjoy it in a certain way, maybe you do a mini cut.
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Now you don't do that mini cut right the week before knowing that that will create more cravings, a little bit more backslide. So you do a mini cut even like two weeks out and then you do more of maintaining right up until Thanksgiving. And then that's where you have the intentional break and maybe you even give it to yourself for four days where you know you're going to potentially see the scale increase, you're going to skip some workouts, you're going to have that little deviation, but then right after you have a plan to get into that push and then maybe you go into another little phase after that. But that's what I would call the flex. Owning that during one season, instead of just trying to push through, you're going to use the little mini cuts, you're going to use little mini diet breaks, you're going to use little mini lifestyle builds or smaller deficits or even maintaining just your results.
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But you can even break things down so that it's not longer phases. Sometimes the holiday season is that intentional break from Thanksgiving to the new year. But again, it's owning your balance with that because I think that's also something we don't recognize enough is that when we do sort of come out of the cut and let things slide, we don't either A, recognize that we're letting things slide and we say, "Oh, I deserve this. I'm being good enough. I'm not being that bad." And all of a sudden we're starting over. But the intentional break is not creating any guilt because you have those boundaries, you know where you're going with it. So that's where the flex can sort of use that, but also the push as well. But you're owning where your mindset is at. And so I want to dive into some of the journaling, whether you want to write this down or just reflect on it, but some of the things that I think are really key to assess when going into one of these seasons or even with the shift in season, if you're starting to feel like you're relying a little bit more on willpower, if habits are starting to feel like they're becoming a little harder, and this doesn't even have to be a set spring season or you might not even be conscious, but if you start to feel those little things like, "Ah, this feels like a little more than it had been feeling," that's a good time to do some of this journaling to really reassess.
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And I'm going to tell you at the heart of all of this, it's recognizing that we need to compare to the same time, the same lifestyle where we've seen these patterns or whatnot repeat or what results we got out of them. And so what I mean by that is instead of thinking about, well, how can I compare to January during December, think about how can I compare this December to last December to be better than? That's always our focus. How can we take the same phase, so to speak, and be better than we were in the past? Because that's what makes our lows less low and makes our highs higher because we have that platform to already be improving on, right? If you can only gain two pounds instead of the five, that's still three pounds lower you're going into the new year. So if you see the same results from the other things and you usually lose all five pounds, now if you're already three pounds lower, that's five pounds off of that three pounds lower.
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So it's recognizing how can you make those little improvements that add up? So in doing some of the journaling or reflection work, which is not the most sexy thing, it's not the most fun thing, we want to get to action, being a disciplined person, I'm like, "Give me what to do." But at the same time, I've recognized this is what actually makes my discipline pay off in a productive way and makes me not waste it. And it helps me honestly get over the cognitive dissonance a little bit. So it helps me recognize that being disciplined means I can be disciplined with doing less by setting those as the goals of being perfect. So these are the standards I want to hit, even if they're less than the other standards, but these are the standards I want to hit for this holidays because I recognize they're better then.
(17:42):
They're more even, if that helps you, they're more than they were the year before. But in the reflection, first look back. How did I handle this season last year? And I slightly touched on this already, but I think it's so key that we really do reflect on that. And I bring this up to talking about the push because I do know my instant thing is no, I'm going to be that person that pushes through.This season I'm pushing through. I really want this goal. When I reflected a lot of holidays, I recognized that going into a lot of holidays, I had said the same thing and I was like, "Oof, that's part of what backfires." And so instead I said, "You know what? I'm actually going to go into the season saying, what can I get away with? What can I do?" And for me, it was more in the maintaining over the intentional break.
(18:24):
And I've even had holidays now where I've taken the intentional break. I've now had holidays where I've actually pushed because I had a specific goal I wanted to achieve with it. I've had all the different phases now, but partly because I broke the pattern of thinking that I wanted to push when that's ultimately what caused me to fall off. So look back at holiday seasons. What have you told yourself you wanted to do? How have you approached them in terms of feeling restricted or feeling like you had the choice? What could be a better balance? And in this reflection, really think about what was the outcome? If I told myself I wanted to push, did I actually push? Did it actually pay off or was I starting over in January feeling a little worse off?
(19:01):
Don't let that present bias sabotage you, but think about what was the outcome of it or did it work? Did how I handled last holidays actually really work for me and how could I improve upon it? Or can I keep it the same? Or can I even do a little bit less and get away with more? But really look at what was the result? How did you physically and mentally feel after that season was over and what were your results, your energy, all the different things, not just the scale, the more ways we measure success, the more ways we give ourselves to be successful. Was your performance really good or was it really bad? Were you really consistent with workouts or were you not really consistent because of the standards you set? Then even think about the patterns. What did you really notice? Did this push hard lead to you ultimately ending up having more cravings, feeling like it was your last meal before January started, or did the push hard help you go into January feeling way ahead?
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What really happened as a result of that? Did you over correct? Did you have guilt? Did you feel really good? Did you feel like you actually got to embrace the holiday season or the summer or the vacation in the way that you wanted, which made you value the other times that you could push even more? Then the upgrade, we'll call it. How can you actually be better than you were last year? So it might be shifting mindsets. It might be doing less. It might be saying, "Hey, during January, during the summer, I love my six workouts a week. And maybe even during the summer, I don't know about you, but I find I'm the most active. It's warm. I want to be outside. I want to do a lot of things. I feel really good." So it's kind of weird with the holiday season where it's already getting cold, I feel a little bit lazier.
(20:33):
You feel a little guilty with that, right? It's hard to be like, "Well, how can I do less? How can I say that three workouts is not only good enough, but good?" And I say that too, because we have to recognize the mindset we're creating. So often if you set six workouts and you only do three, not only have you designed technically for six or the three aren't necessarily as productive, but you don't feel as successful. Oh, I only got in three. Versus if you had set three and designed for that time, not only would they potentially be more productive, more based on your goals, drive progress forward faster, but you'd be like, "I got in the three I was assigned that I assigned to myself." So it's about the mindset you're also creating. So how can you be better then? Is it setting a minimum to create that success mindset so then even going into January, you're motivated to do a little bit more, your body feels really good, you're able to stay consistent and then you don't have aches and pains add up because inconsistency can be a killer more than anything else.
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And we don't often recognize that because we're like, well, I'm still doing something. Yes, but inconsistency can mentally make it more taxing feeling to do that. It can lead to more injuries because we want to push hard when we really shouldn't be pushing hard because we don't have that baseline built. So recognize how can I upgrade? How can I do something differently than I did the year before? Can I be a little bit better in terms of my meal prep around the holidays and not try and force myself to be conscious of what I'm eating on Thanksgiving and just let myself have that grace to do whatever I want to do because I really like that holiday. I really love to celebrate the summer vacations and go on vacation and try all the foods and not worry about tracking. Okay, then don't. Say, I'm not going to, but then what's the balance around it?
(22:01):
Because so often we tell ourselves we have to do something on it to not do it and then we come back feeling even worse and we don't get back on the healthy habits that we need. And we have to recognize what these interruptions do. Interruptions kill momentum. They're kind of like the opposite of a fresh start. January and a fresh start builds momentum. It gives us this feeling of new, right? We can reinvent ourselves. Disruptions basically do the opposite. They can throw off the best routine. It's why it can be really hard to get back into the healthy habits after vacation because of the little bit of deviation we had, even if you were in a great groove beforehand. So it's recognizing, oh, I want to do this, but then this is the balance I'm striking and this is the choice I'm making. So the more you can even say, how can I really work all these things in, what can I even get away with, the better off you're going to be.
(22:44):
And then in saying, how can I be better then? Set those standards for yourself because that gives you a way to reinforce even that identity, not create that cognitive dissonance because really discipline doesn't mean doing more. It means doing the standards really well, being very focused on what we should be doing and what we want to be doing. And so when should and want overlap, that's really where we see that success. So how can you create things that will make your disciplined identity heart happy in creating standards that you can be perfect at that actually fit this season? And this is where minimums come into play. What can I do no matter what? Not what's less than what I am doing right now. And I think that's so often the focus we do get. Okay, well, I was doing six workouts, so let's just say three or four.
(23:27):
Is that actually realistic for the season? With all the holiday travel, what's actually realistic? And again, you can use that flex phase where maybe you do do six workouts on the weeks that you're home, but then you have a plan for when you travel of three workouts or even taking that as a complete week off, you have that plan. But I want you to set minimums that literally on the worst of worst days you feel like you could accomplish. And there still might be that bad day that pops up where you can't do them, but the more we have this attitude, the more we'll do something and that something will lead to us feeling more successful and wanting to do more. But so often we don't think about those minimums and true habit change as being, what can I do on the worst of worst days?
(24:03):
It's why habits slide so quickly when we feel like anything else pops up because we haven't truly ingrained them. We've been relying on discipline. We've been relying on willpower. They haven't become habitual. And what becomes habit, what becomes routine is what is easily reinforced by our environment. So as you set those minimums, think about how you're going to reinforce these into your routine so that you do them almost unconsciously. If you really want to focus on hydration, putting that water bottle out by your coffee machine right now while you can focus on it so that it becomes so habitual, so just part of your environment that you do it automatically during the holiday season. If you want to focus on protein, how can you have it so prepped, so readily available that you know no matter what you're going to start your day with protein or have that protein snack?
(24:43):
So maybe even when you have those days that things don't go perfectly, you don't hit this intensive macro ratio you would ideally like to hit at other times, you're still getting your protein in a way that you are hitting that protein minimum. Create the environment to reinforce it. Make the habits super silly, simple and set those minimums because the more you do, the more you do. The more that becomes natural, the more that becomes part of our environment, the more we can build upon it and see a lot more healthy habits just last. But recognize the season you're in and recognize that season might require slowing down and that sometimes in slowing down, that is where the magic of lasting recon really happens. It's not in the cut phases. It's honestly often in what you do around those times. So I would love to hear how you're focusing on those minimums, maybe one minimum you're even implementing shared in the comments and maybe even tell me what did you do with this reflection?
(25:34):
Was it eye opening to really assess how you've handled previous holidays, previous summer vacations, and what's really sabotaged you?
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